UNKNOWABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 2)

by Rivers, Hart;

  The CIA, quite privately, answered to him.

  When JD didn’t reply, Phillip checked his pocket watch. “Let’s get to it, Glen,” he instructed Claymore. “You have the materials I requested?”

  “Yes, sir,” Claymore responded. Then, to JD, “As I’m sure you’ve surmised, we have a situation that goes beyond all the latest, goddamn grenade fraggings taking out our officers and NCOs, but we think they may be related.” Claymore pulled a file from the briefcase he hadn’t wanted to get wet and which JD had inspected the second Claymore went to greet Phillip.

  Even if his snooping was to be expected, grumbling, “We always have a damn situation” clearly was not.

  The other two men exchanged looks.

  JD took the extended file, said briskly, “Explain.” Yes, better to keep his eyes on the enclosed intelligence and pretend his attention wasn’t elsewhere.

  Phillip sighed softly. “You will excuse us now, Glen. I will take it from here.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Now.”

  “Sorry, sir, excuse me,” Claymore mumbled, and took his four stars out of the limo with him.

  Then it was just JD and Phillip and the rain on the roof.

  Phillip slightly bowed his head. “I regret the situation, JD. The circumstances, all of it, I wish were otherwise. This operation would be messy enough without certain complications…” His long pause, punctuated by the rain, gave JD time to reflect.

  It was not a comfortable reflection. This was one of the few people JD truly admired and trusted—at least until Kate had entered the picture. And yet, Phillip was the one responsible for that, so what wasn’t there to trust? JD slightly bowed his head in return, knowing the monks at the monastery who had taught and trained him—and, worst of all, his brother Zhang—would be disappointed in his suddenly behaving like a petulant adolescent who was angry because his personal life had to take a backseat to the sense of duty with which he had been raised.

  As large as the backseat was in the limousine, the space felt a little too intimate and cramped with what was not being said.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t have brought me here unless the situation dictated such an urgent meeting,” JD replied. “Shall we discuss what is in the file?”

  “Actually, JD, what is not in the file is why it’s so critical to have you handling this case. It involves your step-brother Zhang.”

  JD’s eyes narrowed. “What about Zhang? He’s been dead twenty years.” A great deal of care and strategy had been necessary to create that particular myth. He had confided in Phillip when he was still young and naïve, but had never since worried the divulgence was misplaced.

  “Yes, well, let’s hope there aren’t many who’ve since discovered that appearances aren’t always what they seem. Especially not a foreign national from Corsica we know as The Pale Man and his main man on the ground, who wouldn’t be hard to pick out of a line-up, do you think?”

  JD glanced at the file photo of an Asian tribesman with a snake tattooed across his face. “So,” he asked, “what do The Pale Man and pretty boy here have in common that involves my brother?”

  “The Pale Man intends to take over the opium trade in Southeast Asia and possibly has the means to do so.”

  JD felt a muscle work in his cheek, just above his jaw. It was clenched as tightly as his brother Zhang’s hand of protection over the poppy fields that flourished in the Golden Triangle—where Burma, Laos and Thailand met and the Mekong River abetted the transport of the region’s major cash crop: opium. The CIA had established an ever-increasing role in the Asian opium/heroin trade after France made its exit from Vietnam. JD didn’t like it but he understood it made good fiscal sense from the CIA’s perspective. That put Phillip right in the middle, intervening before another war behind the scenes could get started.

  Phillip searched through Claymore’s briefcase and kept talking. “Something seismic is happening to this whole thing. Something all the way from here to the Hong Kong heroin labs, to the Corsicans moving it in and out of Europe, to the movement and shipping of the product worldwide, and that includes some very enterprising mob bosses in the US. Everything is shifting, everything. We need to get this under control.”

  He extended a second picture that JD had somehow missed in his earlier prowling.

  That bothered him. A lot. Missing anything in his profession could easily cost him his life, or someone else theirs. Judging from another soft sigh across the seat, Phillip had already surmised his top asset in Southeast Asian clandestine affairs was not at the top of his game.

  “The Pale Man.” Phillip tapped the color photo that revealed a striking lack of color in the subject under discussion. “Also known as Paulu Salvatore Luna, from one of the oldest families in Corsica. I haven’t seen him in a while, not since Kissinger and I met with him in Austria, but he contacted me this morning. He was very specific about the time and coordinates.”

  “For what?”

  “A meeting with you.”

  “He would know me?”

  Phillip delivered an eloquent shrug. “One can only surmise he has made it his business to know of you. Certainly not easy, but he would have his means, fiscal and otherwise. And surmising that, one might also entertain the possibility he has connected the dots between you and your not-so-deceased brother Zhang.”

  JD did some swift mental calculations. It was entirely possible that a highly motivated, well-connected, unscrupulous world player could manage it. As for what Phillip was inferring…

  “Are you asking me to go in so I can act as a liaison?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then do you want me to get rid of him, this Pale Man, when I see him? Is that what this is about?”

  “Were it that simple.”

  As Phillip launched into the critical specifics and nuances of the players and plotting involved, JD could only think, And there goes the rest of my private cruise up the Mekong with Kate. There goes asking Zhang for his blessing. The tribal bracelet on his wrist glinted, a reminder of when he first realized he was getting in too deep. Guys like him couldn’t have a woman like Kate, but he had been weak and human and now he wanted even more of what he couldn’t have. He needed to send her back to the mission hospital, apologize for spoiling…

  “…and so the many layers of The Pale Man’s connections, the complexities of—JD?”

  Well-manicured fingers snapped and JD blinked. “Yes, the complexities of…?”

  Phillip folded his arms. Shook his stately head. “I asked you to keep an eye on Katherine, to help keep her safe. Not to fall in love with her.”

  Was it that obvious? He had barely admitted it to himself before professing it to a woman he never should have smelled, tasted or touched. For both their sakes, Kate should have stayed in California and never signed on as a surgical nurse in Vietnam.

  Lying came very easily to JD when necessary; it was, after all, a very big part of the job. Lying was quite necessary now, and yet he remained silent.

  Phillip leaned forward. He actually looked sympathetic.

  “Of course, how could you not, and how could I have made the grave mistake of thinking you less than human? I would have married her myself if I hadn’t been already married, but that only made me an adulterer and Kate much too young to realize I was bad news for an innocent like her. You, however, JD, are far more dangerous to her than simple bad news. You know it and I know it. Your dead girlfriends know it. Does Kate?”

  The unthinkable words were out before JD could stop them.

  “I want to resign.”

  Phillip blinked several times but recovered himself quickly with an indulgent chuckle. “Oh, that’s rich.”

  “I’ll do this assignment, but after that, I’m out. Someone else can do the dirty work so the rest of you can stay clean.”

  JD could not tell if Phillip’s little smile was one of bemusement, disdain, or pity.

  “I know you to be many things, J.D, but naïve has never been one
of them.”

  JD stared at him, hard.

  “Very well, if you can complete this assignment without getting killed, which will be trickier than usual with your head somewhere between the clouds and up your ass, I will do what I can on your behalf.” Phillip tapped on the window. As the door opened and an outside umbrella beat back a sheet of rain, he left with an ominous wave of his hand. “Just be warned, my young friend. Wild predators like you don’t do well in domestication, no matter how alluring their keepers may initially seem.”

  JD stared at Phillip’s retreating back, soon obscured by the wash of rivulets and fogging glass. Phillip was right. Kate was a distraction he couldn’t afford. At least, not yet.

  As the abbot would have said, one must have the patience to wait until the mind is settled and the water becomes clear.

  And once it was? He would ask for Zhang’s blessing and hope Kate was willing to give up life as she knew it for a man whose shadowed past would chase them, but whose heart would always be true.

  Chapter 3

  Undisclosed Location

  1100 Hours

  JD had been waiting nearly one hour as instructed after being dropped exactly at the coordinates received. He’d spent far too much time touching his bracelet, checking his watch, and reassuring himself that Claymore had seen that Kate was safely escorted back to the mission hospital.

  He had to get his mind off that boat with Kate. If he wanted to see her again he had to keep himself safe until this last job was over. For now he was completely alone and surrounded by miles and miles of dense, highland bush, no sign of civilization beyond the newly created landing zone where a black chopper was descending.

  It had no ID and dropped into the LZ on powerful rotors that were more silent than any JD knew to exist. JD took his cue and greeted the man who emerged from the craft.

  “J. D. Mikel, is it?” The voice had a sandpaper quality. Thin and scratchy, it suited the rest of him.

  “Yes and a pleasure to meet you, sir.” JD bowed slightly.

  The Pale Man nodded. His self-ordained title was apt. He was pale as a porcelain plate and wore all white: a long-sleeved, tropical linen shirt and matching trousers, with a protective straw hat to shield as much of his face as possible, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes. He seemed nearly an albino, but not quite.

  The Pale Man smiled now and his yellowed teeth were like the old ivory of an aged tiger.

  He signaled and four guards spilled from the chopper. Two were armed with short, ugly, powerful German automatics and had the look of South Africans. Behind them were two Asians that JD identified as Cambodian Hmong by their traditional clothing and the accents he picked up in a quick, conspiratorial exchange. They were much smaller than the South Africans but contained a lithe, smooth strength that would serve them better in this environment than the brutally strong build of the others that would endure only so long in this kind of jungle.

  Both Cambodian guards’ faces were intricately tattooed with snakes; one matched the picture of the man from the intelligence files.

  His host had come highly insured. JD’s body tensed and a premonition moved through his psyche like something with dark wings as the strange Pale Man led the way.

  JD fell in step slightly behind him, the formidable group of guards so close he could smell their collective muscle, differentiate their individual scents. Eventually they emerged from the dense double canopy and crossed a small, arched bridge over a swift-flowing stream and moved past a large, black stone. It was a sculpture, JD realized, with a cobra carved inside. It stood sentry beside an iron gate which opened into a garden.

  The guards hung back and did not impose their presence on the garden’s perfection. A small wonder stood in its center—a carved teak palace of perfect proportions. JD ascended the highly polished stairs with The Pale Man and paused on the landing, where a pair of carved jade doors fronted two large, porcelain vases filled with flowering ginger.

  The Pale Man swung open the double doors, revealing a cool, dark interior space. They both stepped out of their sandals and left them at the door. As JD’s eyes adjusted he could see the fine rugs, the carvings and furnishings, all museum quality antiquities. An enormous gong and a breathtakingly beautiful Go board were set up near a lotus pond.

  By way of invitation The Pale Man gestured to the pond’s other side where a gathering of batik-cushioned chairs invited contemplation. Indeed, JD was caught by the vision of several extraordinary carp swimming amongst the floating, bright-pink lotus blossoms and verdant green leaves. The carp were large, very old and exquisitely colored in shining, iridescent deep blues and whites and pale gold.

  He bowed toward them. “They are remarkable,” he said.

  Aged tiger teeth glistened past an approving smile. “Ah yes, they are, aren’t they? I had been told you have a fine consideration and appreciation of the Oriental.” There was a pause and then abruptly, “I would gift you one. Which would you have?”

  JD hesitated. This was a swift and ruthless player. The offered gift would be nearly impossible for even a very wealthy man to repay. It would also be extraordinarily rude to refuse and, under the circumstances, dangerous; yet to accept imposed a heavy debt.

  “I would take the pale gold one,” JD carefully responded, “but given she is only a component of the entire piece, I would have to take all of them. Taking her alone would flaw the composition and make it common—still lovely, of course, but common, as Wu Tao-Tzu would have said.” Such a reference to Wu, JD knew, would place his adversary in an awkward position if he was a true student of the Asian arts, for how could he possibly contradict anything the great Tang Dynasty master painter would have said? When The Pale Man responded with an unguarded expression of surprise, JD seized the advantage. “Therefore, I can only assume you have something of more value you want to speak to me about?”

  “Well spoken.” The thin, papery voice reminded JD of a snake’s warning hiss. This one was particularly cunning, hiding behind the veil of politeness. “Wu Tao-Tzu would have certainly complimented you. A drink?”

  “Tea, please.”

  “Also well spoken.” The Pale Man nodded to a servant who disappeared into the dark hallway as silently as he had appeared. Again The Pale Man gestured to the batik cushion. “You have had fine teachers I see.”

  JD did as he was bid and made the appropriate response to the compliment. “I have been fortunate in my teachers, but of course am still not worthy of them.”

  As they sat in silence while waiting for the tea, The Pale Man removed his sunglasses. His nearly colorless eyes appeared like glassy, pink halos around the black marble of his pupils.

  JD noticed The Pale Man staring at the tribal bracelet on his wrist and felt strangely violated. There was no other word for it, nor any rationale for the kind of gut reaction that had kept him alive more than once. He discreetly covered his wrist. The Pale Man nodded slightly, indicating the action had been noted.

  The tea arrived, the ceremony flawlessly performed. The teapot and small jade cups were of the finest quality and the tea, exceptional. JD knew he could not say the same of his maneuver with the bracelet and sought to reestablish the balance of their lunge and parry.

  “You honor me with this,” said JD, “and your tea is worthy of its cup.”

  The older man nodded. “It comes from one of my own plantations.”

  “From Lamdong I would say, south slope. A very fine Iron Buddha, tie guan yin.” JD took another small sip of the extraordinary tea he knew was worth a staggering sum, as would be a rare, vintage wine. “I myself grow a Longjing, the Dragon Well, near there on a north-facing slope.”

  “Again I say your teachers were very fine.” The Pale Man smiled his tiger smile again. “Perhaps you would someday sell me your Longjing plantation…or perhaps trade it for something of value?”

  “Perhaps.” JD smiled back.

  “I am now expanding my farming interests into other lucrative crops.”

  “T
he war provides many opportunities.”

  “Yes,” agreed The Pale Man. “And I will be establishing my operations from north down to the south with our friends in Air America, and then to Europe through the usual family channels in Marseille, and the USA. In order to ensure this—and I always like to ensure things—I would appreciate your and your Ambassador’s cooperation.” He turned the full ferocity of his smile on JD and clapped his hands.

  The servant with the tea service appeared again, this time with a domed silver tray. JD’s earlier premonition barreled full force into his psyche, the dark wings converging into an ominous black mass.

  “Usually, I would offer perhaps one of her lovely ears or a finger to show my sincerity,” explained The Pale Man, “but in her case, as you said of the golden carp, it would ruin the overall beauty of the composition to mar her. And I certainly would not want to do that, especially if I have to keep her. Now, please allow me to offer some proof that she is already mine.”

  The servant removed the domed lid.

  JD’s breath stopped.

  Centered on the tray was the severed head of the sampan’s boat pilot. Between his teeth was the silver bracelet JD had given Kate.

  Chapter 4

  Nha Trang, Vietnam

  Dr. Israel “Izzy” Moskowitz stared out over the South China Sea, his army-owned ass planted in the white sand fronting one of the world’s most beautiful beaches, and counted his days until he could go home.